An American expat's stories and experiences while in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Author is an EMS consultant and Paramedic Instructor in the KSA. The blog discusses travel, day to day living, experiences with students and the adaptation to a new culture.

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Read Me/Disclaimer: This is a non-political/socio-political blog. It's a running tale of my Saudi Arabian adventure, great, good, bad, and ugly. It is uncensored, and I don't really care what you think of it, read it or don't. I don't care. I did not decide to do this as a means to an end, but rather to document the means with which I occupied my time while waiting for my end... All that being said, I'm an American Expat in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The opportunity to help build this system and the salary that accompanied it were to good to pass up.-Geoff

**"The views presented here are just the views of some asshole named Geoff, they are not necessarily the views of my employer, my co-workers, my family or anybody else. First hand knowledge and second hand accounts were used to compile the information. These are not scientific facts and figures. These views are not necessarily supported, endorsed or even appreciated by the KSA the USA or any other country for that matter and the author makes absolutely no claim that they are."**

Thursday, December 1, 2011

"I'm a Civillian Explosives Expert"-Warning "slightly" explicit

"I'm a Civilian Explosives Expert!" and in the same breath "are you from the UK? or USA?" These statements definitely go down as the number one and two things you don't want to hear you Saudi cabbie say. This debacle/goat roap/monkey fuck had started almost 2 hours earlier, let me go back and 'splain a bit...we had a pretty bad cab day...we needed a cab in an emergency and we asked the first cab if he knew where "xyz" was and he said "yesh, yesh, get in". That was the last time the son of a bitch spoke English...So finally at the height of my frustration I said just stop here, to which he said "speak Arabic?" "NO, NO!, MAFI ARABI!" "that's why I asked if you knew where it was!" He just looked at me. This guy was dumb in any f-ing language. So we finally tell him the name of a mall near where were going and he lights up with understanding. He pulls up at the mall, stops, we pay him and get out. Now we still need a cab to the original location, but were closer now so it should be easy right??? The first guy we flag down doesn't really speak English, and he looks confused when I ask him if he knows where "xyz" is, so I say "no thanks" and we walk away, he sits there and honks at us 2-3 times and I come back towards him and he says "ah yes I know". Stupid F-ing me thinks "ok he must have just remembered" Yeah...that wasn't it. We got about a block away, obviously going the wrong way and I'm trying to ask him if he knows where he's going when he turns completely around (mind you he's driving in heavy traffic) and says "Speak Arabic?" Friends, that's when I just about lost my f-ing mind. ("friends it looks 'dem duke boys are in a pickle") I had to pinch myself and force myself to calm down, because while I'm sure he really didn't speak English, he wasn't as dumb as the first guy and he knew damn well that the words coming out of my mouth weren't very friendly. So Justin, who normally manages to completely save our collective asses either through friendliness or technology, see me calm down, and then starts in on the guy "why did you say you knew, if you didn't know!" Cabbie's response: "huh?". Justin couldn't get a good signal for the GPS, and so after dicking around with this idiot for an hour, we got a hold of our friends and found out that they were already at the hospital, so we had the driver take us back to the mall...Really, the mall?...I've been to more malls, more times in the past month than I have in the past 5 years in the states. I began to prepare to smoke a much needed cigarette, when I realized I must have dropped my lighter in the cab...fml. So then, I go searching through the mall for a store that might sell cigarettes and lighters, except even in a country that loves tobacco, I couldn't find one...On the Carrefour window there's a big sign that says "Because Carrefour cares for your health and the health of your family, we do not sell cigarettes" "#$%#^"...."*&^%#"....."@#^^%$". fml..twice! (Reason #592 that I hate the french: Carrefour and their stupid tobacco policy, I should have known the french were such lovers of life, its why they've never managed to fire their damn weapons at anything more menacing than a hay bale in modern history! The last good thing they did was show a few American WWII era GI's a good time, and even those poor bastards were getting German sloppy seconds!" Screw France...So to finally get to the point that inspired the title of this post...I found a smoker and got a light, it was now time for us to head over to a work meeting (9pm-nobody actually sleeps here, they rest. You can do anything at just about anytime except of course during prayer) So we find ourselves an English speaking cab driver, who was actually Saudi by birth (rare, most are Indian, Egyptian or Pakistani) and who knew the city pretty well, sounds great right? As were pulling away from the mall, he says "I'm a civilian explosives expert!" and "are you from the UK or the USA?" I think "FML!" for the final time that night and just kinda sink into the back seat and try and sleep...